Handgun used in Chicago cop's murder purchased in Cross Plains

posted by WKOW -
Mar 2, 2018

Cmdr. Paul Bauer/Chicago Police Department photo

CROSS PLAINS (WKOW) -- The handgun used to kill a Chicago police commander Feb. 13, 2018 originally was legally purchased from a Cross Plains gun shop, according to an investigation by the Chicago Tribune.

In a lengthy storyposted March 1, 2018, the Tribune traced the ownership of the gun, A Glock 26, or "baby Glock," from the original gun shop, to a Stoughton conservation club, to Milwaukee then Chicago. (READ THE STORY HERE.)

Cmdr. Paul Bauer, 53, was shot to death in downtown Chicago after chasing a man fleeing from officers who tried to stop him, according to the Tribune.

Bauer confronted the man, who opened fire as the two struggled, killing the 31-year department veteran. Shomari Legghette, 44, has been charged in the murder.

The Tribune report follows the purchase of the gun by a private individual in Dec. 2011 from PT Firearms in Cross Plains.

Shortly after Bauer's killing, federal agents interviewed the purchaser, who told them he had sold it to a fellow member at the Stoughton Conservation Club, according to the Tribune story.

From there, the club member sold the weapon online in 2017 to a buyer from Milwaukee who had been accused of felony crimes in the past.

In Wisconsin, selling a gun in an individual or private sale does not need to be recorded. No background check is required, according to the Tribune report."The loopholes are here in Wisconsin and things need to be different," Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) tells 27 News.Private sales of guns in Wisconsin can involve transactions between relatives and friends, and there's been resistance to subjecting private sales to the background process in the past. Even the sale of the later-murder weapon to the accused felon was legal.

The trail of the gun from Milwaukee to Chicago went cold for federal investigators, however they do know that shell casings from the gun were found at a shooting scene in July of 2017.

That's the last known whereabouts of the weapon until the fatal confrontation that ended Bauer's life.

For more on this story: http://www.wkow.com/story/37624940/2018/03/01/report-handgun-used-in-chicago-cops-murder-purchased-in-cross-plains

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